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popularSkillful_Pickle | Staff posted Today 03:02 PM
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popularSkillful_Pickle | Staff posted Today 03:02 PM
12,000 BTU 20 SEER2 Ductless Air Conditioner with Heat Pump, 110V AC $400 + Free Shipping
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This must be a typo right?
This must be a typo right?
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank iota
Here are some tips:
- These units are just re-branded from the manufacturer who's name is "Aux"; Aux also makes basically all of the other low to medium priced units from a ton of different brands. The other big manufacturer is "Midea", who makes the Pioneer ones. Between Aux and Midea, there are basically no other manufacturers of minisplits in the affordable price range and both Aux and Midea are good at this point.
- As I noted above, just get 240v unit. You only need a 15amp circuit to run the 12000btu unit, which means you can just use 12-2 romex to feed it. Don't bother with a 110v unit unless you absolutely cannot add a 240v circuit.
- The unit uses basically no power, its amazing. I believe the 12000btu unit is stamped as having a max draw of 9 amps, but since it's an inverter unit it can scale the power usage down to almost nothing. I noticed that my power bill actually went down when I replaced my older 16 SEER Pioneer from about 10 years ago with a 21 SEER Yitahome/Aux one, and I haven't noticed any noteworthy increase in the bill despite adding multiple new units which has been great.
- The app sucks, but all of the apps for chineese appliances suck. It's not the worst but it's not great. I forget the name but I think it's called "AC Freedom". It sometimes takes a couple tries to get it to pair with the app, if you can't get it to pair then you have to hold down a button on the remote and the instructions are wrong about which button to hold down. I will look at my notes and update this because that was the worst part of the whole thing was trying to set up the app. The included IR remote is fine, nothing special, totally normal minisplit remote. I don't even use them. The Yitahome unit does NOT come with a wall holder for the remote unfortunately.
- The installation is easy if you have DIY skills. You'll need a 2" hole saw, a pair of adjustable wrenches, a phillips screwdriver, and only one or two specialty items I list below, so it's not like this requires any expensive stuff to do. Here are the exact steps:
1) Drill a 2" hole in the wall with a hole saw, all the way through
2) Attempt to mount the inside unit so that the pipes and wires go through the hole. Note that these mini split mounts are NOT 16 inches wide so getting it onto 2 studs is a pain in the ass, but the inside units are light so I just buried deck screws into the stud for one side of the mount and then used drywall anchors for the other end and it works fine.
3) Carefully unroll the lineset and do not kink the very fragile copper tubing. If you break or mess it up, you can cut it back and re-flare it with a simple single-flare tool.
4) If you need to greatly lengthen or shorten the line set, you'll need an HVAC guy to help you as the system will need to have R32 refrigerant added to compensate for the added length; the manual shows how much per meter needs to be added. I recommend trying to make it work with the existing length of line. These Yitahome ones come with (I think) 13 feet? of line, I forget the amount but it's the perfect amount to put the outside unit on the other side of the wall from the inside unit but if you start trying to get it further away you will run into issues.
5) Use "Nylog Blue" on the threads of the flare connections and tighten on both ends. Note that the lines come with plastic caps and when you remove the caps you'll hear gas escaping - that is just nitrogen that they purge the lines with to prevent contamination during shipping, it is NOT the refrigerant being lost so don't let it scare you
6) Once you've tightened the lines, wrap them with the included crappy tape and put them in a line hider that you can get on amazon, or find a better way to deal with hiding and keeping the lines safe
7) Now, rent or borrow an automotive vacuum pump and manifold gauge set from the auto parts store, or buy one (I use Amazon item B00SZ4QFW0 for years without issue). You will need a special adapter to connect it to the system so that you can vacuum out the lines which will remove any impurities that could reduce your heating/cooling capacity. Here is my absolute #1 pro-tip: Just spend the extra money now and buy Amazon item B008HQ2EZ8 which is the "Appion MGAVCR Mega Flow Vacuum Rated Valve Core Removal Tool – 5/16" System Connection". Yes, it is $65 but trust me from much experience this is absolutely the way to go and is the ONLY adapter that you need to buy
8) Remove the caps from the service port and valve controls on the outside unit (near where you tightened the lines). Attach the Appion finger tight, and then press its plunger in and twist counter-clockwise to remove the valve stem, and then pull it backward. Take the Appion off and double check that you did it right because you need to practice that motion and right now, before you vacuum the system, is the only time it's safe to be looking at it. Once you figure out how to remove and install the valve core, remove it and then connect your vacuum gauge to the manifold set, connect the blue hose to the Appion, and vacuum for 1 hour. The gauge should go to -30ish and may be hard to read but as long as it goes way down and stays down, you are good. Close the blue valve on your manifold and turn off the pump and wait another hour, as long as it hasn't changed in pressure you are good. Close the valve on the Appion (so you don't let all the "vacuum" out), disconnect the manifold gauge, reinsert the valve core and reinstall it. Once the valve core is installed you can remove the Appion and if you don't hear any air wooshing back in, then you are done vacuuming.
9) Turn the hex (allen wrench) inside both valves counter clockwise to release the refrigerant. If you hear any leaking, try to quickly tighten any flares but you probably rushed vacuuming and didn't wait and make sure the gauge stopped moving dummy so call an HVAC guy to help you.
10) Connect the wires from the outside to inside unit, which are not labeled very clearly so use a flashlight to see the labels on the wires (or just connect them in the same order on both units and you'll be fine, its just 4 wires)
11) Connect the outside unit wires to a non-fusable 30amp AC disconnect, which you can get from Home Depot for about 15 bucks (Halex is the brand for the ones my store carries). The Aux/Yitahome units come with a cable for this which is nice, so if your code allows it, you don't even need an "ac whip" cable to connect the unit to power.
12) Connect the non-fusable disconnect, which just allows the HVAC guy to safely unhook power to the unit in case he ever needs to work on it, to your breaker panel with 12-2 nm-b or better and a 15amp 2-pole breaker, or have an electrician do it - just tell them you're installing a minisplit and you need a 15amp 2 pole breaker added with a disconnect installed.
13) Connect the drain line, which basically just drains the condensation out of the inside unit, to somewhere outside. It can make a LOT of water if you run the unit 24x7 so just be mindful of that. FYI, the outside unit will drip water from the copper valves if it's hot out (this is normal), and also will drizzle water out the bottom via the 1" hole if the heat is turned on. The unit doesn't come with a valve cover or a bottom drain hose, I 3D printed a bottom drain hose plug to help drain it nicer when the heat is on.
14) Flip the breaker on, make sure the disconnect is in the "on" position and wait for the inside unit to beep. It takes a couple minutes even after turning on for the outside unit to make any noise since it's an intelligent unit so it doesn't just start as soon as power comes on. Use the remote to change the temp.
- Finally, the best part is that these work with Home Assistant via ESPHome. You just remove the USB wifi dongle that's installed under the lid of the inside unit and install something called the "Smartlight SLWF-01PRO" which you can get from a store I've had good luck with called cloudfree.shop for about thirteen bucks. Flash it with the config I made for Yitahome which you can find here: https://github.com/jasongill/esph.../minisplit and then install it where the USB stick was and the unit will appear inside of Home Assistant. These even report their power usage, outside temperature, and a bunch of other stuff and really work well, so happy with that part of it.
If anyone has any questions about these units let me know but I will say that I absolutely love them and have gone back and bought more units twice now to give me a total of 5 of the Yitahome 21 SEER 240v units, thats how great they are. And if they go bad after a few years (which I doubt) - they are only four hundred bucks, which is less than a service call from the HVAC guy! My Pioneer units that cost 4x as much have lasted 10 years but are starting to have compressor failure due to mice getting in to the outside units, so if the Yitahome lasts even half as long I am still happy.
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